Tide Pool

In the 19th century, the invention of the halftone screen allowed printers to easily reproduce photographs by translating shades of gray into a pattern of black dots that varied in size according to the depth of tone. A close look at photographs in the newspaper shows the same process at work today. In “Tide Pool,” Robert Covington digitally applies a particularly rough version of that antiquated analog mode of reproduction to a moving image, even endowing each dot with the slight illusion of three dimensions. Although the artist’s subject—taken at the famed photographic location of Point Lobos—would be difficult to grasp in a single frame, when viewed in motion with a subtle hint of sound, the graphic abstraction easily translates into an image of reality, thanks to the mind’s irrepressible urge to find order in chaos.